Nelson: Downtown will lose a tradition when Barnett's closes

Posted: Sunday, May 04, 2008

Don

Nelson

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When Barnett's Newsstand owner Midge Gray sells her last New York Times and shutters her long-standing retail shop on College Square on May 18, our central business district will be losing more than just another business.

Downtown patrons will be bidding farewell to a tradition and an old friend, another casualty of our changing times - a high-speed world where more and more people make their connections through the Internet, cell phones, cables and satellites.

Yet, connectivity comes to mind when you think about Barnett's. The 66-year-old newsstand gave customers and passersby a sense of being linked to the world through the headlines and photographs that beckoned from the covers of newspapers and magazines on the sidewalk racks.

"There's something to be said that's real and physical about seeing a bundle of newspapers and walking by and scanning them," Athens artist Stuart Libby said about Barnett's. "You can't do that with the Internet."

The College Avenue newsstand also hooked up people, through conversations between customers browsing the shelves at the store or through pleasantries exchanged with the ever-friendly employees or through friends designating Barnett's as a meeting point.

And dating back to 1942, Barnett's represents a connection to the past, a wonderful mercantile history that has helped sustain downtown Athens - the heart of the community. Yes, Barnett's gave us a connection to the past and the present.

Barnett's passage will diminish the ranks of those few retailers who can boast the status of elder statesmen in the central business district, yet we'll still have a number of enduring businesses to count on.

Lamar Lewis shoe store (started in 1929) might be the oldest shop that has continued under the same name in the downtown retail core. Then we have Horton's Drug Store (1947) and the Mayflower restaurant (1948); Foster's Jewelers (early 1950s), Marvin's Shoe Service (1955) and Heery's Clothes Closet (1959). Fortune smiles on Athens to have that many businesses with that kind of endurance in downtown.

For the record, among the oldest downtown enterprises are the Athens Banner-Herald (1832), Athens Hardware (1865) and W.B. Steedman & Son (1906), but each of those operate on the eastern edge of downtown and differ somewhat from a typical small retail shop.

As the years move on, the significance of all downtown's older businesses grows even more important as does the role of the generation of establishments started between the late 1960s and early 1980s. That group of shops, becoming traditions in their own right, includes George Dean's Men's Wear, which actually has operated as a men's store since 1909, but became West and Dean's in 1967 before George Dean put his name on it in 1971. Wuxtry, Masada Leather & Outdoor, Aurum Studios, Adams Optics, Encore and Blue Bird Cafe can be counted among that array of long-standing enterprises, many which have not only helped generate business downtown, but also provided leadership roles in dealing with various downtown issues over the decades.

And in the past 15 to 20 years downtown has enjoyed the emergence of even more small shops which are relatively young now, but show the potential to develop into the next Athens landmarks.

Nevertheless, when Barnett's leaves, the fellowship of downtown businesses will treat it like a family death, a void that can't be filled.

"It breaks my heart," said Adams Optics owner Jim Adams, who added that he stops by Barnett's every morning.

Of course, the loss will be felt far beyond the business community and regular downtown customers.

Fred McRee of Dahlonega shared an e-mail the day the news broke that Barnett's was closing.

"The first place I head when I visit Athens is Barnett's. Picking up a copy of the New York Times, any magazines that strike my fancy and just "rummaging around" among all the publications has always been such a treat. Perhaps it took me back to my younger days when there were a number of newsstands in Atlanta. This is the death of another of our fast disappearing traditions. I will miss Barnett's!" McRee wrote.

McRee's sentiments will be shared by countless others, including the masses who descend on downtown on autumn Saturdays when the Bulldogs play at Sanford Stadium.

We're all going to miss Barnett's and Midge and the Barnett's staff, but we're grateful for tradition and memories.